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glossary

07 of November 2005 09:40 AM

Posted by:panschk[FP]
Scorpion wanted to have something like this, and I think it is a good idea. Feel free to add more terms.

0-9

1 Nat, 2 Nat: Refering to the locations of the closest natural expansions. People are still debating if they are the expansions litterally closest to the startlocation, or the expansion which naturally will be the first to take because it would be most strategically correct.

2-way symmetry
a map that is mirrored, meaning that the top is mirrored copy of bottom, or right side is a mirror copy of left side etc. This is a easy way of making positional balance, but if used the wrong way it can be seen as boring and unoriginal. Examples of this are Neo Forte and Ride of Valkyries.

4-way symmetry
Could also be considered "clockwise/counter clockwise-symmetry" because it generally means that the map is divided into several slices which are all copies of eachother rotating around the centerpoint of the map. Known examples are Nostalgia and Luna.

8-8-6: The "classic" expansion layout from Lost Temple: 8 mineral blocks in mainbase, 8 at the natural expansion, 6 at the mineral only expansion.

AI: This term is used here to talk about "artificial intelligence", more precisly the pathfinding routines for units. Units might get confused by mineral walls, long and narrow paths etc. Good mappers try to reduce the frustration for the player by stuff like that to a minimum.

BS: Could mean either the map Blade Storm or "Bull Sh*t". Should be obvious in the context;)

BWMN: aw, come on...

CC: Terran Command Center, the main building for terran.
Cheat codes: Of course cheating in Battle.net is a sin ;) But for testing stuff on your maps in single player mode, some cheat codes are useful to save you time:
black sheep wall : See all map
operation cwal : Everything builds very fast
show me the money : Get a lot of gas and minerals to build stuff.

Doodads: Elements that are picked from a StarCraft editor, to make the map more natural or to be more pretty

Exp(o): Expansion. This is building new bases at a place where you can find ressources. An Expansion can consist of only a hatchery/nexus/CC, or much more buildings.

FE: Fast expand

flothefreak: Funny guy :D

Gas issue: When Gas is on top or left from the mainbuilding, you can gather gas perfectly with 3 workers, if it is on bottom or right, you need 4. For balancing mainbases, this is quite important to know. See the articles "the gas issue" and "the gas issue part 2" in our article-section.

gj/GJ/gw/GW: Good job, good work.

imba(lance): Something is imbalanced when it is not balanced ;) In Broodwar mapping, we will mostly talk about two kind of imbalance situations: Racial imbalance between zerg, terran and protoss, and position imbalance, like when it is much easier to expand on one position of the map than on an other. Of course mappers should try to reduce both kinds of imbalance as good as possible.
IMO & IMHO: In My Opinion - In My Honest/Humble Opinion.

KotA: King of the Abyss, a map by Travin that was played at blizzcon too. It plays very different than any other maps and is probably a zerg-favoring map.

LT: short Term for the very popular blizzard map The Lost Temple.

Mineral blocking: Blocking something (either a path, or the building space for an expansion) with one or more mineral stones. Usually they have a very low value (0-24) so you do not need much time to mine it. Blocking paths is made to add more strategical depth, but can also confuse the unit AI if placed at the shortest way between two strategical points. Blocking minerals at an island expansion are made to prevent terran from taking it by just floating. this is only useful if the expansion is very near to a players main base.

(Mucho) Money maps: Maps with _a lot_ of minerals. Fastest map or Best map ever would be examples. Most experienced players hate them because the reduce the strategical and tactical depth of starcraft. On this database they will not get much love neither ;)

Obs, Observer maps: Maps where some spectators can see the players compete. Panschk made an article on how to make one : click

pos(ition): The point where something "is" on the map.

pos-imba: Combination of position and imbalance (-> see imbalance)

Semi-Island map: Even though some other interpretations might be possible, most people mean maps like Neo Forbidden Zone or Estrella when talking about Semi-island or hybrid maps.
SP: Either Starparty or his map Space Pirates, at least at broodwarmaps.net ^_^;

UMS: Use Map Settings. In this mode, changes in unit properties, allience settings etc can be made. Even though all maps here are supposed to be "melee" maps, they should be working when hosting them in UMS. Most common errors: Players races are not "user selectable", players are allied /share vision. Even in a melee map, this should be fixed, in observer versions this is even more important.

Comments:

LGI

This is something that i learn in a while:

imo - In my opinion :)
FE - Fast expand
Exp - Expand
Doodads - Elements that are picked from a StarCraft editor, to make the map more natural or to be more prety... Blah is that should be explaind?
floatfreak - Funny guy :D

For the last one i am just kidding :P

[7x]SpitFire

^_______________^
However, it was added :D

SpoR[Mech]

BBS, BSB , Tank Range = check for cheapness, Multi & Expo, Imba = Imbalanced, Backdoor = Expansion like Dhalia. Thats all I can think off the top of my head. Nice Idea.

SpoR[Mech]

Hybrid map, Island map, Land Map, Central Power map, etc etc.

SpoR[Mech]

Maynard Transfer

Starparty

bah add that later :P

Scorpion

What BBS mean?

And central power map.....

So many terms... I'm going to lay down for a while :P

LGI

Haha, some has add floatfreak :). Hey i was joking :))))

Empyrean

Barracks-Barracks-Supply TvZ rush.

Your Name

add '2-way symmetry' and '4-way symmetry'

flothefreak

MU - matchup
wall-in - T_T
custom ramps
SE - staredit

btw
"flothefreak: Funny guy :D"

hehe^^

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